Inspired by Canada’s so-called “Freedom Convoy”—the group of truckers who essentially held the city of Ottowa hostage for over a month in protest of COVID-19 safety mandates and a general assortment of other gripes—some American truck drivers formed their own “People’s Convoy” and descended on Washington DC earlier this month.
For weeks, the truckers have been blocking traffic, driving the two-mile-long caravan in laps around the city, and annoying local residents by blaring their horns. This weekend, the convoy was temporarily foiled by one brave hero who hilariously trolled the truckers using just a bicycle.
The bicyclist—who is legally entitled to full use of a lane of traffic—brought the trucks to a crawl, lazily cruising in front of them Saturday afternoon.
Even better: At one point, a convoy livestreamer pulled up beside the bicyclist and yelled, “Hey, what are you doing? You have a bunch of trucks behind you!”
“What?” The cyclist yelled back, coming to a full stop in the middle of the street—clearly the only polite thing to do so as to better hear this message amid the sound of a few dozen truck horns blaring behind them. The livestreamer repeated himself a few times—“You got a bunch of trucks behind you!”—before the cyclist told him, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, it’s too loud.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, it’s too loud.”pic.twitter.com/0GC5kc7XOn
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) March 20, 2022
Like their Canadian counterparts, the reasons for these truckers’ tantrum are murky and definitely less than cohesive. The Washington Post writes: “The group says it is protesting pandemic restrictions, even as many mandates have been blocked or lifted, but those at the speedway appear to be motivated by a broad range of right-wing grievances and conspiracy theories.” Participants have raged against everything from pandemic safety measures to Black Lives Matter to the Capitol police.
This also isn’t the first time the convoy has been disrupted by the simple actions of DC residents fed up with this clownery:
Patriots, all of them.
(image: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
